John Darby (1800-1882) was a member of the Church of England. Later, because of a perceived laxity in the church, he departed from Anglicanism to join the emerging Bible home study group movement known as the “Brethren Movement.” He was founder of the group known as the Plymouth Brethren.
Darby attended the Powerscourt prophecy conferences at Powerscourt Castle in Dublin, Ireland in 1830.
Pastor Irving, mentioned in a previous post, spoke at these conferences on the “Secret Coming Rapture.” It was here that Darby was most likely introduced to Irving’s ideas on the pre-Tribulation Rapture.
Irving died in 1834, and it was left to Darby to synthesize the various points of the pre-tribulation doctrine to bring it to its final form.
The doctrine of the pre-tribulation Rapture took a period of many years to finalize—between 1838 and 1845. It did not find easy acceptance, caused divisions and bred confusion during the years that Darby worked on it. Years later (1859-1874), Darby would take the message to America where it was readily accepted.
The early Niagara Bible Conferences annually met from 1883 to 1897 under the early pre-tribulationist Darby.
Here it should be noted once again that George Mueller was an early opponent of the pre-tribulation Rapture. Mueller was a man who had read through the Bible more than 200 times while on his knees. He had over 100,000 recorded answers to prayer. He started orphanages, missionary sending societies, tract and Bible printing ministries, and he pastored the same church for over sixty years.
Let us hear what this great man of God had to say…
“Can there be any resurrection before the first one
George Mueller
(We'll look at George Mueller's quote again in the next post.)
